Hungary ranked ‘free’ for democracy

Hungary is still ranked among “free” countries by Freedom House’s latest democracy survey. Its “Freedom in the World 2015” report saw Hungary score two for civil liberties for the third consecutive year. The country’s political rights rating declined from one, the best rank, to two “due to an election campaign that demonstrated the diminished space for fair competition given legislative and other advantages accrued by the ruling party”, the report said. It cited Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as saying that a democracy should not necessarily be of a liberal nature. Freedom House ranks as free those countries that score one-2.5 in these two categories.